soft focus

:any place i’ve lived

:caterpillar

cut away and rising:

degrees have dropped & people speak sparely about how it affected them. as a race we have a compulsion to list things. how many drinks were drunk, how long we braved an occasion, where we went next. i wonder about this desire to depict an order, is it simply to remember or rather to confirm our existence in light of others. what are we afraid of, forgetting or being forgotten? i’m not sure which is worse.

people love a holiday, it refreshes them. those that don’t make a show of things still get to return, make an entrance, come back with new stories. it’s an opportunity to experiment & change what wasn’t working. to take stock of self. rattle the cage a little. work makes people wild. it tames them to a point with routine & rhyme, but left too long it starts to reduce the sane ways we unravel things.

to be isolated for getting it wrong feels unfair. there are no rules, just people’s opinions and a want for warmth. to smile at someone is to understand a situation. from false grins to teeth baring photo faces – they all have their time & place. we carry too much information, too much advice. each time we try to move a hundred voices commence combat. falling isn’t failing & the best examples lead.

:golden playpen

Through grey trees and dead wires. Lifting light over buildings. The promise of warmth raises eyes with hope like glasses at a wedding. The chance of more, a question answered right. An alternative to night.

Shifting shapes and restless limbs, bustle to position. A sword in my hands and a scarf around my neck. Inching closer, moving forward. Some might say the sky is falling. This time I’m getting it right.

for what it’s worth:

“Are you a believer?”, she asked.
We’d just sat down & I wasn’t ready for an argument, not at this hour. I thought of  many things before carefully preparing my response. For this was our first official meeting. A sit down & dine, the first sit down & dine, with my lover’s mother. It’s easy when you have a history with someone, to say what’s on your mind. Well it should be. The more you know about someone the more you sometimes have to censor, as with information comes politics.

Out of those considered I pondered enlightened passages & philosophical fairness,
in conversation with myself.

It’s not about what you’re looking at,
It’s about what you see.
It doesn’t matter how you do things,
As long as you are doing them.

If you continue to do,  just what you do,
does it always lead to success?
I believe so.
I respect people who stick to their guns.
They always seem to triumph,
no matter how long it takes.
Yet we all claim to know people who have wasted life waiting.
We retell the story to avoid
doing difficult things ourselves,
for it’s easier to be the person who warned more than willed.

Imagine a world defined by one word, one ideal, one saying.
Words can describe moments & music can help you remember them.
No phrase captures it all, as no song says it all.
Your sense of smell pointing you,
to places you’ve once been & long to belong to.

People are in search of a simple truth,
a hard-line, a stance to live by.
Words to recite when things go awry
I used to believe that the more definition my life had,
the more control I would have over it.
Now in reality,
there are now more lists
needing maintenance.

Coming full circle,
I considered,
“It’s all about what you do with what you think.”

So, what i did was smile.
After one final pause  I said,
“I’d prefer not to talk about it.”

:enola gay

five bucks in my pocket:

:release

it’s hard talking about love. people always talk about how they can’t define it, it’s a noble feat to live your life trying to. i want to be well-respected & loved. i wanted to be famous but after the life i’ve lead i’d be happier just to be alive. when i stopped wanting to be famous i overcompensated with everything to try & pretend i didn’t care. all in a vain effort to conceal the reason for my decisions. when i lost people i didn’t live in a way that honoured them. at the time i bandied around the word “lukewarm” – it was a word i used a lot to decipher what i thought was weak. to be “lukewarm” was the worst thing imaginable to me at the time. to have failed. the truth is, i never really got over it. the reality, of what had happened that is. it’s prophetic when you start repeating things to yourself, to be become what you fear. we’re defined by our failures, just hopefully not remembered for them. we’ve done the things we do so many times before. to climb over the wall.  to mean it. to take the time it takes. i fear for the few who were smart enough to see it but didn’t stick around long enough to change.

:pay it forward